Sunday, November 8, 2009

Smishing Attack is New Variation of Classic Fraud

Chase Bank Customers Targeted Via Texting

Chase Bank customers in the New York metro area have been receiving bogus text messages claiming to be from the bank, asking for account information. A local New York television station reported the phishing attack last week, claiming that "tens of millions of dollars" have already been stolen by fraudsters.

Chase media relations spokesman Tom Kelly downplays the report, saying, "As you might expect, TV is a little breathless on an issue that has been around via email and now texts for a number of years." Kelly says this attack is a variation of phishing known as "smishing." He says the amount of money taken in the attacks or the number of customers receiving the text messages is unknown.

Lesson learnt:

The new variation of phishing knows as smishing. Don't trust any sms from unknown sources regardless - period.